Friday, August 14, 2015

Korean Air has officially disclosed the configuration of its soon to be delivered inaugural Boeing 747-800 of which the airline has ordered 10 units of. The layout is as follows:6 first class + 48 business class + 314 economy class seating a total of 368 seats in total.

Comments:KE
should have configured their B748s with only a dual class layout to
realize better commercial performance. This would mean a layout of 48J +
384Y totaling 432 overall which would have been better for high density
routes to YVR, YYZ, SYD and ORD. In total, KE has 10 B748s on order which is enough to use on these 4 routes.

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Emirates has officially announced that it will be increasing capacity on its popular daily Dubai-Singapore-Melbourne service effective 01MAR16. Currently, this route is operated using the B777-300ER but from 01MAR onwards it will be upgraded to an A380 on a daily basis.

A large portion of passengers it gets on this flight originates from Colombo as it connects its daily DXB-CMB-SIN service conveniently via SIN in both directions to MEL. Overall, EK will therefore fly to MEL triple daily i.e. daily B77W + double daily A380 !

Delta Airlines has disclosed that due to low yields, it will be reducing its services into Dubai effective 01OCT15 as despite seeing above 80% seat factor on its Atlanta-Dubai nonstop service, the service realizes a big loss. DL is unjustifiably blaming the GCC carriers for this when it has a monopoly position on this route but fails to acknowledge the extreme low pricing tactics of TK, OS, LH, KL and RJ from USA to DXB which in turn hurt its bottom line even more. Effective 01OCT15, DL will henceforth be reducing ATL-DXB from current daily nonstop to 4 weekly only using a B777-200LR exclusively.

Qatar Airways has announced that due to high demand for its flights to Bangkok from Europe in particular during the winter season, it shall be significantly increasing capacity on this route effective 25OCT15. Currently, it operates DOH-BKK four times daily i.e. daily A380 + triple daily B77W, however from the on set of the IATA W15 season, it will be flying 19 weekly A380s + 9 weekly B77Ws.

Another reason is due to QR not being able to find viable alternate routes for its 500 seater A380s as Europe cannot sustain it during the IATA Winter season, India is bilaterally restricted, the airplane is too large for USA plus no other Asian city in its network is feasible with this aircraft type in terms of consistent high demand. Beijing and Shanghai could justify an A380 commercially (since its bilaterally constrained) but filling it at 80% consistently will be a huge challenge for QR + it would fore go a lot of belly cargo currently on board its B77W.

Turkish Airlines has revealed that due to high demand from Europe to Kuala Lumpur during the IATA Winter season as well as a big decline in MAS's presence on the continent, it will be increasing frequencies on the IST-KUL route effective 25OCT. Current daily nonstop flights will be increased to 10 weekly nonstop using an A333 exclusively. With regards to Kathmandu, TK has disclosed that it will be reducing its presence in the Nepal market from current daily nonstop to 4 weekly only using an A332. KTM does not see high volume demand year round from West Asia and Europe like KUL does plus has strong competition from QR, AI, 9W and WY.

Emirates has officially announced that it will be launching the world's longest nonstop flight effective 01FEB16 utilizing the Boeing 777-200LR. EK revealed its newest long haul destination shall be Panama City (PTY) in South America which would be flown on a daily nonstop basis out of its Dubai hub.

The flight schedule is as follows:

EK 251 Dep DXB 0805 Arr PTY 1640
EK 252 Dep PTY 2230 Arr DXB 2315+1

EK already has an interline deal with PTY based COPA Airlines which operates a similar hub & spoke business model. It will through this new service offer convenient access via PTY to all the major South American metro cities through Copa's extensive network. It is expected that eventually both EK and Copa will enter into a more deeper code sharing relationship once the new PTY flight matures. Link: